


Somewhere I Have Never Travelled, Gladly Beyond

by MortalCity



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Blue Shot, Domesticity, Episode Tag, F/M, Ficlet, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Joanlock - Freeform, Joanlock-ish, One Shot, Partnership, Poetry, Sentiment, Sherlock Speaks French, Things Unsaid, Two Shot, What-If, brownstone moments, lonely, partners in all things, post episode, post-episode, red shot, season 6, season six, things happen over breakfast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 12:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15972527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MortalCity/pseuds/MortalCity
Summary: Sherlock is pretty sure he's not the only one who's lonely.-----Episode Tag for 6.19, "The Geek Interpreter."  Because, of the many women in Sherlock Holmes's life, Jamie Moriarty is not the only one who fits.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There was a HUGE opening in the dialogue of the last episode. The writers served a very tempting pitch. I swung.
> 
> I blame Ze for making me wonder if we could get more from episodes, OldShrewsburyian for reminding me all about episode tags, Kelly Wheeler for writing these beautiful moments of sincerity and vulnerability between Joan and Sherlock, the kind reactions to my last episode tag, and a severe lack of sleep for the blatant sentimentality in this story.
> 
> The title comes from a breathtakingly beautiful poem by e.e. cummings. Its most salient parts are quoted below. Dialogue from the episode from which this follows is also included. The French phrase used translates to "the song of my heart." (I know what the writers have said about these two and romance, but...God help me, I still hoped. Maybe you did, too.)

_your slightest look easily will unclose me_  
_though i have closed myself as fingers,_  
_you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens  
_ _(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose._

_or if your wish be to close me,i and_  
_my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,_  
_as when the heart of this flower imagines  
_ _the snow carefully everywhere descending;_

_nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals_  
_the power of your intense fragility;whose texture_  
_compels me with the colour of its countries,  
_ _rendering death and forever with each breathing_

_(I do not know what it is about you that closes_  
_and opens;only something in me understands  
_ _the voice of your eyes is deeper than all the roses)_

e.e. cummings

  

* * *

 

_“There’s no need to be envious. You could have everything he has.”_

_“Well, that’s just it, you see, I’m…not sure I can. You were right. I mean, every potential romantic partner I have pales in comparison to Moriarty. That might sound strange, given what we know about her, but…I’m a strange bloke, aren’t I? She fit. And I fear that what we had can’t be replicated.”_

_“It probably can’t. But that’s okay. Falling in love with someone isn’t supposed to be the same experience every time. Someone else will be…someone else.”_

_“I suppose you’re going to suggest I try online dating next.”_

_“Would that be so bad? Try something else.”_

_“Such as?”_

_“You’re the one who loves experiments, so…experiment.”_

 

* * *

 

He finds her at the breakfast table, clad in ratty pajama shorts and a nearly transparent t-shirt. The sleeves of her ubiquitous red sweater have been pushed to her elbows as she digs mercilessly into a bowl of cereal and scans the smattering of papers spread out in front of her. Her hair hasn’t yet been combed, and her reading glasses are just beginning their slow descent of her perfectly proportionate nose. 

She’s barefoot and cross-legged and looking somewhat like a very mature, very smart college student. It almost makes him smile. 

(Almost. He realized sometime during his disclosure last night that Watson is one of a select few who can pull a genuine, self-deprecating smile from him—and the only one who does so with relative frequency.) 

Sherlock Holmes is a measured, exacting man, but words escape him without permission as he sits opposite her with a bowl of his own. 

“Are you lonely?” 

She looks up, wide-eyed, halting her mastication of a mouthful of Muesli mid-chew. “Wh—?” 

“You asked me if I was lonely,” he murmurs, gesturing with splayed fingers towards her spoon, loaded with oats and frozen in mid-air, “and last night, we engaged in a quite pleasant examination of my psyche. I aim to repay you with a similar conversation in which I am thankfully not the subject.” He inhales sharply, punctuating his statement with the clatter of woefully boring cereal in the bowl. “Afterwards, we can discuss the mysterious disappearance of my Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but not before.” He blinks expectantly—lips pursed, eyes disarmingly wide, and forehead smooth. “Are you lonely?” 

Her eyes narrow suspiciously as she divests of her glasses. “Why would you ask me that?” 

“Aside from the fact that you asked me?” he retorts. 

“I didn’t ask you,” Watson reminds him with the smallest hint of a smile. “I made a series of observations and deduced your loneliness.” 

His right hand twitches like the tail of a fish, laying out the argument he feels no need to articulate. 

Annoyance colors her porcelain features. “I’m adopting a baby.” 

“Because you are eager to fulfill a maternal longing, to raise a good citizen, and to prove your mastery of yet another aspect of humanity,” he concludes in agreement. “A baby is not the same as a beau, Watson.” 

“The last time I had a serious beau, you called me a romantic terrorist,” she reminds him pointedly. 

“Perhaps it bears repeating that the woman with whom I fell in love is an actual terrorist,” Sherlock offers hopefully. “I didn’t mean to rebuke you to the point of surrender. If I deserve happiness, Watson, then you deserve ecstasy. In spades.” 

Something softens in her suspicious gaze, and the gold flecks in her deep brown irises warm him like the sun. 

“You are unconventional, yes,” he agrees, echoing her unspoken thoughts, “but you are not unworthy. If anything, you are _most_ worthy.” 

Gold flecks cede power to a silver sheen, and Sherlock swallows the part of him that wants to run screaming from the room every time he even suspects his formidable Watson may cry. 

“I lead a complicated life,” she concedes at last. “My kind of love—it’s big and fierce and all-consuming, and that works with a child. Parents are supposed to love their children that way.” 

“And partners?” Sherlock prods. 

( _Say the words_ , he thinks _, and I will open the door. I will use your flame to set fire to everything I own, and every word I say will be an iteration of your name._ ) 

She gives him a small, sad, grateful, beautiful smile. “I already have a partner.” 

He hears his voice, the echo of a declaration made in a bathroom against the persistent roar of an electric razor, like the buzzing of bees. 

_“Partners in all things, Watson.” *_

“I-I must confess something,” he murmurs. The gentle vibrato in his voice is a remnant of the notes he fingers with his left hand—something by Jacques Brel, or Celine Dion, perhaps. He hears the nasal ring of French vowels in the corner of his brain attic. “I was not entirely honest with you last night. I said that Moriarty _fit_ , that she was the first person to do so, but I failed to acknowledge that she hasn’t been the only. Despite the fact that you entered my life as a seemingly interminable burden on my indepedence, Watson, you have become…” 

_Le chanson de mon cœur._  

(Jamie Moriarty holds a piece of his heart, yes—perhaps even a large piece. He may never get it back, and he’s not entirely sure he wants to. Watson, though—Watson is the reason his heart beats, steadily and soundly against the silence of his sometimes tormented thoughts. She is the metronome to which he has aligned his entire existence. Moriarty is his fantasy, but Watson is _his_. More importantly, he is _hers_ , willingly and gratefully.) 

“Perhaps,” he gasps, and the word rolls like a marble in his mouth, “the ‘more’ I require is the ‘more’ you are so desperate to give.” 

She arches an appreciative eyebrow as she passes the milk across the table. 

“Partners in all things?” 

Their fingers brush for a blessed moment—a small but poignant experiment. 

The words hang in the air like a promise.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When your tag needs a tag...
> 
> (P.S. There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to "In Immortal Lines," because apparently my audacity knows no bounds.)

 

 

“About my cereal,” he asks her later in the media room, daring to rest the edges of his patella against hers. 

“Partners in all things,” she murmurs coyly, doing a shoddy job of holding back her mischievous smile. 

“Even the consumption of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?!” 

She spins in her chair to face him, and his knee misses hers immediately. “Do you want to change our agreement to ‘partners in _some_ things’? Because we can go backwards.” 

His fingers migrate absently to the swell of his lower lip, where a delicious blend of honey and Watson still lingers. 

(He can think of nothing he would like less than going backwards, save concrete proof of Watson’s mortality.) 

“Perhaps,” he concedes reverently, “you could just replace the box next time.” 

Her smile is the beautiful, breathless stretch of lips he has tasted. “Deal.”


End file.
